NBC News Must Trim Budget by $3.5 Million

NBC News is planning to make a $3.5-million budget cut throughout the news division, according to sources at the network.

The budgets of both NBC News bureaus and individual programs such as “Today” and “NBC Nightly News” are being reduced. NBC News has an annual budget of about $250 million.

No layoffs are planned at this point. The reductions, instead, are expected to be achieved through normal attrition of employees as well as through such measures as saving on satellite time and a reduction in overtime.

The news cutbacks--which are part of a networkwide austerity move at NBC--are said to be largely due to a shortfall in advertising revenue from the “Today” show, which has dropped from No. 1 to No. 2 in the ratings against ABC’s “Good Morning, America.”

The news division also has faced some unanticipated costs of expansion such as the start-up of the unit producing Jane Pauley’s prime-time specials and projected prime-time series. Pauley has received high ratings for her prime-time specials, but the “Today” ratings have fallen since her highly publicized departure for the early morning show in December.

According to sources at the network, NBC News President Michael Gartner has told NBC President Robert Wright that the news division will break even this year. NBC News was over budget during the first quarter of this year. Among the three network news divisions, ABC is the only one that reports a profit.

Gartner, a former newspaper executive with the Des Moines Register and Tribune Co., was one of the judges for the Pulitzer prizes on Monday and was unavailable for comment. But, in an interview published Monday in Electronic Media, a trade publication, Gartner said: “Wright has made it clear to me he expects NBC News to break even, and that’s what I expect to do. . . . When you’ve got somewhere between $250 million and $300 million to manage, there are always corners and cubbyholes and other areas where you can find things to cut. It doesn’t have to mean laying off people outright.”